Selective hearing.

Anyone NOT been accused of that? Throughout the course of our lives we all develop a remarkable talent for selective hearing. Dale Carnegie said that hearing one's name is the most beautiful sound to the human ear (and he proved it personally with his gift of libraries, all of which bore his name). But that only applies when the one calling our name isn't a parent or spouse asking us to perform some chore. No matter what decibel level is used, kids can always fail to hear mom calling them away from the basketball game for dinner, just as all of us can keep directives to pick up socks and towels from ever crossing our eardrum's threshold.

One of the most enduring legacies of the raucous 60s rock music is an early onset of hearing problems for the Boomer generation. As Boom…